Nora stammers on about how nurse would be a good mother to her children if she ever went away.
Nurse tells Nora she will look the best at the ball.
Nurse exits and Nora continues to worry about Krogstad turning up that day.
Enter Mrs. Linde.
Mrs. Linde agrees to mend the dress for Nora for the ball the next day, and says she will turn up just to see Nora in her dress.
Mrs. Linde thanks Nora for a god night out the night before, but is concerned about Dr Rank and how depressed he was – they find out DR Rank is very ill due to his father recklessness as a boy.
Mrs. Linde question Nora about Dr Rank and whether he can be trusted as he comes round all the time and thinks Dr Rank lent Nora the money for the holiday Nora had for Helmer.
Nora tells Mrs. Linde it wasn’t Dr Rank who lent her the money as it would put in her in a awkward position when he came round, and that he didn’t have the money to spare on him at the time.
Nora decides she needs to end the bond with Krogstad as soon as possible, and asks Mrs. Linde if when you pay off a debt you get the bond back, and says when she gets It back she will tear it up in to a million pieces.
Nora asks Mrs. Linde to fix the dress with the children as Torvald doesn’t like seeing dressmaking being done. Mrs. Linde exits.
Helmer enters.
He asks if the dressmaker is there and Nora tells him that Mrs. Linde is fixing the dress for her, and tries to get his approval by saying that it is good that she is doing as he wishes.
Nora tries to persuade Helmer to reconsider dismissing Krogstad and giving Mrs. Linde somebody else’s post apart from his. She says she will do anything for him if he does as she wishes.
She tells him he could slate his name badly in the newspapers, just like they did to her father.
Helmer says it will look bad at the bank if he does as his wife tells him to – people will talk if he dismisses someone then takes them back.
Helmer reveals he knew Krogstad as a boy, but it was a rash relationship, which proves to be difficult in afterlife.
Helmer calls the maid and gives her Krogstad’s dismissal letter from the bank. Nora tries to stop him from sending it, but he still doesn’t listen to her as he has already made up his mind.
Helmer says that whatever happens, he will share the burden with her as he is her husband and married couple share loads together.
Helmer exits and tells Nora that if Dr rank comes to tell him where to find him.
Dr Rank enters, Nora tells him Torvald is busy but that she has time to talk to him.
Dr Rank reveals to Nora that he is the most helpless of all his patients – he is bankrupt and within a month he will be lying in his own grave in a churchyard. Dr Rank says that he doesn’t want Helmer in his sick room as Helmer gives an unconquerable disgust at anything that is ugly, and that when he is in dying hours he will send them a card with a black cross on it.
Dr Rank complains that he has to suffer for his fathers recklessness as a youngster, and that he cant do the same because his father has cursed him with illness.
Nora doesn’t want death to take Dr Rank from them, but he thinks that they will form new ties and will forget him within time and will replace him with Mrs. Linde, but Nora tells him no one will ever replace him.
Nora shows him her Silk stockings, and he looks at them critically so Nora punishes him for it by hitting him softly with them on the ear.
Dr Rank reminisces about what may have happened if he had never entered the Helmers house.
